Alright, things have been really rough for the team lately, but they're ready to get back out there, and this will be a nice one for them. I promise. Some humor, some fluff, and an unexpected tiny dog appears.
Steve sighed, pausing just before stepping out past the gates of the school. They were going to Barcelona. Everyone was going, determined not to let Schmidt beat them down. They were on edge, but they were going. They had this.
Steve was still scared, though. He was going to do this—he'd never given up before, and he wasn't going to let Johann Schmidt have the pleasure of being the first person to get Steve Rogers to back down, but he'd be lying if he said the thought of what Schmidt could do to his team didn't terrify him.
"You okay, Stevie?" Bucky asked him quietly.
Steve drew in a deep breath. Schmidt was good, but he wouldn't be bothered by them if they weren't too. They were good, and they were on their guard now. They'd be okay. "Yeah," he said. "I'm good. You ready?"
He saw the same nervous determination in Bucky's eyes as he felt in his own chest. "As I'll ever be," Bucky replied. He stepped out of the gate, eyebrows cocked in invitation, and smiled. "You coming?"
Steve smiled back and stepped from the safety of Hogwarts and its protective enchantments and out past the gate.
They apparated into the early morning quiet of the countryside outside of Barcelona. Spain wasn't particularly fond of Grindelwald, which made travel easier. Still, by this point, the Howlies (and Steve in uniform, in particular) were known well enough to be recognized on occasion, and since they were trying to get in and out without attracting too much attention to their thieving, they were incognito for this one.
"You doing alright?" Peggy asked him, sidling up beside him as they walked.
"Why do people keep asking me that?" he wondered.
She smiled. "Because you have perfectly valid reasons to be worried, and, as I keep telling you, you're not all that hard to read."
"It's not the Schmidt thing," he told her. "Well, mostly not, anyway. I'm still worried about what he might do, but we're committed now, and whatever he throws our way, we can handle it."
"So…" she prompted.
Steve sighed. "I miss my shield." Civilian clothes and disguises were all well and good, but he felt kind of naked without the shield.
She chuckled a little and twined her fingers through his, squeezing his hand.
It wasn't a long walk into town, and they were able to blend in fairly easily with traffic. They were headed for a swankier area of town—Saguaro, the collector they were after, was a wealthy, non-magical civilian. The quickstone had kind of a reputation in historical gemstone circles, which is how he ended up with it, though he knew nothing of its magical properties. (The S.S.R. wasn't in the habit of stealing from innocent civilians—they had offered to buy it from him first, which he declined. They might have left it at that if not for the fact that they knew Zola wanted it too—a little burglary in the face of preventing a war crime seemed reasonable.)
One of the apartments across the street from Saguaro's house was up for rent, and the S.S.R. had snatched it up earlier in the week. The team set up shop there, and Jim and Gabe got to work setting up radios and communication gear, while Dugan and Monty set up security. "Alright," Jim said once the radios were going. "The stone is definitely in that house. And either it's insanely powerful, or he's got some other magical artifacts tucked in with the rest of his stuff."
He looked at Peggy and she shrugged. "It could be either. The stone is powerful, but I have no idea what sort of energy it gives off," she said.
"So, we can check for other stuff once we get in there," Steve said.
Jim nodded. "In case he does have more magic stuff in there, it should be easy to find, but nobody touch any of it until we check it out. We don't know what it is, so we don't know what it does."
Jacques snorted. "Vous n' tes pas obligé de nous dire ça. Nous n'avons pas onze ans."
He was still a little tetchy about being on the mission, so Jim let the comment go. "You especially, Cap," Jim said, pointing at him. "Remember, don't—"
"I know, I'm not supposed to touch the quickstone," Steve said. Since the stone's main purpose was to interact with magic that was already happening, nobody had been quite sure what that meant as far as Steve was concerned. The serum worked very differently than any spell or potion, but was still, technically, magic happening inside his body. They didn't think it would do anything if Steve touched it, but it was probably safer not to find out in the middle of a mission. "How are we looking?" he asked.
Dugan reported no magic activity around the house, and Gabe was listening in on several channels that seemed to be calm for now. The magical radio wasn't picking up anything, encrypted or not, and that, combined with the lack of magic around the house, told them that they'd gotten there before whoever Zola was sending after the thing. Jacques snuck over and placed a couple of bugs around the main areas of the bottom floor, and they spent the rest of the day listening in and watching. The chatter they were getting was all in Spanish, and Gabe was decent at that—Jacques and his translator charm helped him out with words he didn't know, and Bucky chimed in occasionally.
"Where did you learn Spanish?" Monty wondered.
"We've got some friends back home who speak it," Steve said. The Garcias mostly spoke English when they all got together, but Steve and Bucky had picked up a little bit over the years. Granted, most of it was fairly domestic, which wasn't generally useful on missions, but since they were listening in to servants talking about the business of the house, some of it was coming in handy.
"Okay, so, lucky for us, Saguaro does not have any social obligations tonight," Gabe said after listening for a while.
"Wouldn't it be better if he was out at a party or something?" Dugan wondered.
"No," Peggy replied. "This way, he'll go to bed and then all the servants will too. If he was out, they'd have to wait for him to come home. As long as we're quiet, we'll have a lot more freedom to move once everyone's asleep."
Even though they only had to wait until everyone went to bed, it was still after midnight when the last light went off in the house across the street. They left the apartment in twos and threes, making their way across to regroup in Saguaro's backyard. The house had five stories, and the collection was right in the middle on the third floor. The house was too spaced out from its neighbors by the yard to allow for an easy roof access, and there was still enough pedestrian traffic around the front to make the back door their best point of entry. Jim did a quick check for spells, just in case, but it was nice to only have to worry about regular locks. Although, Saguaro did have an awful lot of them.
"Any time, now," Monty said.
"Working on it," Dugan snapped. "There's, like, eight of them."
"Hey, um, did the report say anything about Saguaro having a dog?" Jim asked.
"Didn't say," Peggy said. "Why?"
"Well, there's one right there," Jim said, pointing behind them. "It won't stop staring at me."
Turning around, Steve spotted a fluffy yellow Pomeranian-looking thing sitting in the grass and watching them. "Not much of a watchdog," he said.
As if that had been some sort of invitation, the dog trotted over to investigate them. It seemed particularly interested in Jim's shoes. "Get off," Jim complained, pushing it away with his foot. "I said get off," he told it when it came back.
It yipped, offended, and Bucky turned to Jim. "Just pet it or something."
"No, I don't…I don't like dogs, okay? Can someone get it away from me?" Jim said.
Peggy scooped it up and scratched it behind the ears, and while it seemed happy with that for a moment, its attention soon returned to Jim. "You shouldn't've said that," Peggy told him, smiling. "I think she wants to come over and change your mind." The dog was wiggling and managed to free itself from Peggy's grip. It trotted back over to Jim.
"Seriously, go away," Jim said. The dog bristled and began to bark unhappily. Steve revised his earlier opinion of its ability to function as a watchdog—it might not have had the necessary territorial sentiments, but that high-pitched yap it had could wake up the neighborhood.
A light came on in the kitchen and they all dove for cover as the remaining locks clicked and the door opened.
"¡Mariposa!" came a woman's tired voice. "¡Tú pequeña bola de algodón traviesa, ahí estás!" The little dog continued to bark, dancing away from the hands that grabbed at it. The woman came out onto the porch, peering into the darkness where they were hiding. "No puedes ir a ladrar a las ratas a esta hora de la noche," she scolded, scooping up the dog. "¿Quieres despertar al vecindario?" She clucked her tongue disapprovingly and disappeared back into the kitchen. No one moved until the lights went back out.
"You couldn't've just pet the dog?" Dugan groused, wriggling out from under a bush. "I'm gonna have to undo all those locks again."
They all extricated themselves from their hiding places—Steve kind of wondered how Jim had gotten up the tree so fast—and returned to the porch. Eventually, Dugan got the locks open. They crept inside, locking the door back behind them.
"You don't think the dog sleeps in the kitchen, do you?" Jim whispered.
"Seriously?" Gabe sighed.
"Dogs freak me out, alright?" Jim replied.
"If the dog shows back up, we'll make sure to keep it away from you," Steve assured him, cutting in before they could really get going. "Are we still headed for the third floor?"
Jim collected himself and sent out a couple of spells. "Yep. Now that we're in, I can tell there's four separate sources of magic coming from up there. No way of knowing which one is the quickstone."
"Saguaro really has a knack for accidentally collecting magic, huh?" Bucky mused.
Monty shrugged. "It happens more often than you'd think. Lots of magical artifacts need more than just touch to activate, so they can wind up in places like this, or museums."
"We should rob a museum some time," Dugan said.
"No, we shouldn't," Steve replied, catching Peggy's smirk. "Jacques, lead the way." They didn't have a way of detecting non-magical alarms with magic, but Jacques was good at catching that kind of stuff. "Bucky, take our six, Jim…" Steve sighed. "You stay in the middle in case the dog shows up."
They crept out of the kitchen, looking for a set of stairs to take them up. Steve was glad when they hit the carpeted living room—the tile in the kitchen wasn't too bad, but then they'd hit the hardwood floor of the dining room, and he was very good at stepping lightly for a big guy, but the old floors had been awfully creaky. Even Jacques had coaxed a few squeaks out of the boards.
They made it to the second floor without incident. A light came on under one of the doors and they all had to scatter and hide again. Steve found himself in a bathroom with Monty. The approaching feet headed their way and as Steve dived for the bathtub and yanked the shower curtain shut, it occurred to him that this had been a terrible room to hide in. Monty had dived in the opposite direction from him, so he didn't see where he had gone, but when the light came on, there weren't any screams of surprise, so it would seem he was hiding somewhere.
The shower head above him was leaking, cold little drops of water landing in just the right place on Steve's neck to roll down the inside of his shirt, but he couldn't move for fear of his boots squeaking on the porcelain beneath them. Thankfully, whoever came in's visit was brief, and the footsteps were soon receding back down the hall. Steve waited to exhale until he heard the distant latch of a door.
"Monty?" he whispered, quietly pulling back the curtain.
"Over here," he replied, carefully unfolding himself from inside the linen closet. Good thing he was so skinny.
They regrouped and started quietly crossing the floor to the next set of stairs that would lead them up. Judging by the gentle (and not so gentle) sounds of snoring Steve could hear, this side of the house seemed to be where most of the servants slept. They passed a little common area, then froze at the rapid tick-tick-tick hurrying across the floor. Mariposa appeared in the doorway, a red rubber ball in her mouth.
With a silent yelp of surprise, Jim was off the floor and up on Steve's back, legs locked around his chest. Unfortunately, the increase in height brought him into Mariposa's line of sight, and she yipped happily, dropping her ball and trotting over. She yipped again, and Bucky shot a silencing charm at her, cutting her off mid-bark. That seemed to surprise her a little, but didn't deter her, and she propped her front legs on Steve's calf, yapping soundlessly. Though she was a good four feet away from his ankles, Jim drew them up even higher.
"Mariposa!" Peggy whispered. The dog turned and then bounced away happily in the direction of Peggy and the ball she was holding up. Peggy waved the ball in front of the dog's nose, then tossed it into the common room it had come from. Mariposa bounded after it, and Peggy stood up and shut the door.
"Thanks," Jim whispered, lowering himself down to the floor.
Bucky shot Steve a look and rolled his eyes. Steve smiled and nodded back. They weren't mocking Jim's fear—it was just kind of ridiculous that Hydra had been their big worry, and here they were nearly getting their cover blown by a dog the size of Steve's foot.
They had to hide again before they got to the stairs—a sleepy servant stumbled by and disappeared downstairs—but they finally made it up to the third floor. They knew from earlier surveillance that Saguaro's collection room took up two thirds of the floor. The rest was a study, a library, and a couple of smaller display rooms. The stairs came out on the end by the library.
"Do we need to check any of the side rooms?" Steve asked quietly.
"Nope," Jim whispered back, pulling out his wand again. "All the magic's in the big collection room."
They crossed the floor and it took a little bit of finagling to get the locks to the collection room open without scratching up the ornate brass locks, but they managed. Inside, Steve could see why they hadn't run into any non-magical alarms in the rest of the house. They were all in here.
The room was huge, no walls breaking up the space, but free-standing shelves dotted the floor, contents displayed behind glass. Other displays were set up on wooden or marble stands, most with a glass cover, all with little security devices affixed to the stands, red or green lights blinking silently.
"So, what are we looking for?" Bucky asked.
"That's the tricky part," Peggy admitted. "We didn't know he had more than one magical artifact."
"We have to take them all?" Steve asked.
"I don't think so," Peggy said. "I don't know exactly what the stone looks like, but it's purple."
They spread out to look around, careful not to touch anything. Even though the room was dark, everything on display was lit with soft white lights inside the cases. Steve had to admit, it was an impressive collection. There were jewels, manuscripts, vases, figurines, pieces of pottery and engravings. He couldn't help letting out a low whistle as he circled one free-standing pedestal—the ancient book inside was inlaid with gold and jewels on the back, while the pages were open to an illustration of the Adoration of the Magi, illuminated with gold and silver leaf and delicate red and blue linework, still vibrant after centuries. He knew that wasn't why they were here, but his hands itched to flip the thick vellum pages and see what else they held.
He felt a little bit of magic stir the air, and he moved over in its direction. Something poked him in the back of the leg, and he jumped and spun around, and if he'd been wearing his shield, it would have shattered the glass casing of the shelf behind him. Mariposa was sitting on the floor with her ball, staring at him.
"How the hell did you get out?" he hissed. She yipped at him, though Bucky's spell was still working, because no sound came out, and he sighed and picked her up before she could wander off and scare Jim. "I don't suppose you know where the quickstone is, huh?" He continued on around the side of the case and found Jacques and Bucky examining the same source of magic he'd felt.
"Why are you carrying the dog?" Bucky asked.
Steve shrugged. "She got out and followed us up here. Is this it?"
"C'est une pierre violette," Jacques said with a shrug. "Alors, peut-être?"
"Well, let's get it out and see," Steve said. He wasn't sure what the odds were that Saguaro would have more than one magical purple rock.
Jacques started fiddling with the alarm on the side, and it beeped softly then went dark. The door of the case stuck, so Steve handed Mariposa to Bucky and tugged and wiggled it and managed to pull it open. Jacques picked up the rock in his handkerchief and Steve closed the door.
"Peggy!" Steve hissed. She didn't know quite what the quickstone looked like, but she knew how to test it and make sure that's actually what it was. She was on the other side of the room. Just as he met her, the room lit up brightly, and a shrill, persistent siren split the air. They all stared at one another in alarm, then quickly dashed to hide again. With the room as open as it was, there weren't a lot of options for concealment. Steve ended up under a desk that held several cases of little fossils on top, curled up very uncomfortably in the tight space and with Peggy sitting on his chest.
He twisted a little bit and looped an arm around Peggy's waist, holding her in so she didn't fall out into view. It was a very tight fit, and it was kind of hard to breathe, curled up as small as he was with Peggy's weight on his ribcage, but if he took shallow breaths, he could manage. If he craned his neck, he could see the door reflected in the glass of a framed print on the wall.
The door burst open and a tall, angry-looking man appeared, his bathrobe fluttering behind him like a cape. "¿Quién está ahí?" he demanded. It was Saguaro. He stalked into the middle of the room, eyes raking the sides. Steve supposed they were all well-hidden enough for now, but what happened if he started searching? They'd have to stun him—they didn't want to hurt him, but they couldn't risk him making noise and drawing the servants, or anything that might lead to the police being called.
Saguaro started examining the displays more closely, circling and peering behind things, and Steve heard a flutter of movement. "Ah!" Saguaro exclaimed. "Mariposa! Mi preciosa pequeña, ¿comó entraste aquí?" He straightened up, the little ball of fluff in his arms. All the bite had gone out of his voice and he sounded like he was talking to a baby. "Una niña tan traviesa," he cooed. "¡Sí! ¡Sí, es usted!" Peggy put a hand over her mouth and stifled a giggle.
"Ven, mi amor," Saguaro said, heading for the door. "Ya es tarde. No más jugando en la colección de papa, ¿eh? Es hora de ir a la cama." He paused to turn off the alarm and the lights, then left, making playful little nonsense noises at the dog as he went.
Peggy shifted until she could roll off of Steve and out from under the desk, accidentally kicking him in the chin. "Sorry," she said.
Steve waved the apology off, too busy trying to extricate himself from the tight space for words. He stopped, red-faced, with only one leg free, the rest of him still tightly wedged under the desk. "Little help?" he croaked.
Peggy tugged on his arm and he pushed with the leg that was folded up under him, and for several long seconds, nothing happened, then he popped out and rolled across the floor. Peggy jumped out of the way just in time to keep from getting bowled over. Bucky was watching with a smirk, but said nothing.
"Good thinking, letting the dog go," Steve said to Bucky while Peggy examined the stone Jacques gave her.
"Little fluff ball had to be good for something," Bucky said.
"This isn't it," Peggy said, looking up from the stone.
"What is it?" Steve asked.
"A light source. The more light it's around, the more it soaks up, and then when you say the right trigger word it lights up. Like a lamp without a plug or something."
"Better put it back," Steve told Jacques. That wasn't anything they needed to keep out of Hydra's hands. He sighed. "So, there's more than one magic purple rock here."
"Apparently," Peggy agreed.
They continued their search. Gabe found one of the other magic sources, but it was neither purple nor a rock. It was a little ivory carving of a skull, and looking at it made Steve feel a little queasy.
"We should take that," Jim said, peering over Gabe's shoulder.
"Why? It's not the quickstone," Gabe protested.
"Yeah, but it's super-dangerous."
"What's it do?" Steve wondered, eyeing the little carving that sat, seemingly benignly, on the shelf.
"Without examining it, I couldn't tell you for sure, but it's dark, and I think it kills people," Jim said. "You feel it too, huh?" he asked, arching an eyebrow at Steve. Steve nodded.
"How'd Saguaro get it in here without getting hurt?" Gabe wondered, clicking off the last wire on the alarm.
"He probably wears gloves," Steve said. He made sure his own were on securely, then gingerly picked up the little skull. "Standard operating procedure for historical artifacts." He dropped the skull into the warded box Jim pulled out. "Can we keep the quickstone in there with it?" That was why they'd brought the box.
"Probably not, but I've got more," Jim said, sliding the box into his bag. "I always have one or two—you never know when you'll need one."
"I think we've got it," Peggy called softly from one of the corners at the same time that a startled yelp came from Dugan and Monty's side of the room.
They all ran over to where Dugan and Monty were sitting on the floor next to a little display stand. A little purple stone and an intricate silver shape lay on the floor between them. "Are you guys okay?" Steve asked.
"What the hell was that?" Monty asked.
Dugan was staring at Monty with wide eyes. "Bloody hell," he whispered.
"Um, are you guys okay?" Steve asked again. They didn't look hurt.
"Well, that depends," Monty said, getting to his feet uncertainly. He was staring at his hands like he'd never seen them before.
"Monty, what's going on?" Gabe asked him.
"He's not Monty," Dugan said. He sighed heavily. "I am."
They all turned to look at Dugan. "What?" Steve finally asked.
"Apparently, that's a switching stone," Monty said, pointing at the stone on the floor. "And we…well…" He pointed at himself, then Dugan, then waved his hands back and forth between them.
"You guys just…swapped bodies?" Bucky asked. Monty, or, Dugan, actually, nodded. "That's a real thing?" Bucky wondered.
"Why the hell did you touch it?" Jim demanded. "How many times did I say that before we came over here? I shouldn't've had to say it! You should know not to touch random magical things! What are you, eleven?"
"Would you shut up?" Monty (in Dugan) groused. "We didn't touch it on purpose; I picked it up by the setting," he said, pointing at the silver shape on the floor. "And it fell out. I just caught it instinctively, and since nothing happened when it hit my hand, I thought it was safe. Dugan went to pick up the casing, and I handed him the stone to put it back, and when both our hands were touching it…"
"Yeah, that's how switching stones work," Jim sighed. He waved an irritated hand at them. "Touch it again and switch back."
Dugan picked up the stone and held it out to Monty. Monty put his hand over Dugan's, covering the stone. "Well, that didn't work," Dugan, who was apparently still Monty, sighed.
Steve groaned. "Okay, Jim, is there any way you can examine the stone without touching it? Maybe there's a trick to switching back or something."
"I'll see," Jim said.
"Peggy, please tell me the one you have is the actual quickstone," Steve said, turning to look at her.
"It is," she confirmed. She held out a flat, round stone about the size of her palm. Maybe it was the reflection off the white handkerchief it was resting in, but it looked like it was glowing a little.
"Good," Steve sighed. At least that part was going right.
"I'll get a box for it," Bucky said, picking up Jim's bag.
"Not the square one," Jim said, eyes still on the switching stone. "That one's got something in it already."
Bucky dug through Jim's bag. "How does he ever find anything in here?" he grumbled, pulling out the square, occupied box, several vials of potions, some little bags of powder, and what looked like a cat skull.
"I'm almost afraid to ask about the cat skull," Peggy said.
"You grind it up to put in a paste for animal bites," Jim said absently. "Freshly ground works better."
"Okay, while they're doing that, let's do a quick walk around to make sure there's nothing else we should check, or anything we should clean up," Steve said. He moved away with Jacques and Peggy. Gabe started to move with them, but Jim called him back. They searched the room quickly, finding nothing broken that needed fixing, and no other sources of magic to worry with. Steve kept glancing back in the direction of Jim and Monty and Dugan and the switching stone. It struck him as a very concerning problem, but Jim seemed more annoyed than worried. That was probably good.
"Anything?" he asked, coming back to where they were standing.
"I think we figured it out," Jim said, sounding pleased with himself. "Go," he said, pointing at Bucky, and before Steve could say anything, he grabbed on to the stone that Dugan (in Monty) was holding.
"Jim, what the hell?" Steve demanded as there was a small flash of light and the two of them staggered back slightly.
"Whoa, that was weird," Bucky, who was now in Monty's body, said. He looked down at himself. "Dude, you're skinny."
"What, no, I'm fixing it," Jim protested in answer to Steve's question.
"It looks like you just made it worse," he said.
"No, it…" He pointed at the rock. "That's an old one. When people first started making them, they didn't have it quite figured out yet, so this one is uni-directional. You can only switch one way."
"So, playing musical bodies is your solution to fix it?" Steve wondered. That sounded like a bad idea.
"Pretty much," Jim agreed. "Look, it sounds dumb, but it'll work, alright? Trust me, we worked this out."
"Okay," Steve sighed.
"It'll be fine, Stevie," and that sounded weird coming out of Monty's mouth.
"Alright," Jim said. "Gabe, switch with Dugan's body so Monty's in you." They did so. "Okay, now…" Jim consulted a little piece of paper. "So, Bucky's in Monty, and Monty's in Gabe, you two switch."
"Ah, good to be back!" Monty exclaimed, back in his own body.
"Yes, yes, very nice. Move out of the way," Jim instructed.
"Have we been on a weirder mission than this?" Steve asked Peggy. He was feeling a little better about it now that it seemed to be working.
"It's certainly up there," Peggy agreed, watching the body-swapping chain with interest. Gabe (who was in Dugan) and Bucky (who was in Gabe) had switched, putting Gabe back in his own body as well.
"Okay, last two," Jim said, and Bucky and Dugan switched back, then dropped the stone like it was a hot potato.
"Is everyone back where they belong?" Steve asked.
"Home again, home again," Bucky said with a smile. He brushed a hand across his upper lip. "Is that thing always that itchy?" he asked, nodding at Dugan's mustache.
Dugan was smoothing the mustache down primly. "This is a work of art, I will have you know. Just because you can't grow one this glorious is no reason to be insulting."
"Yeah, well, it wouldn't hurt you to shampoo your work of art every now and then," Bucky replied.
"Jim, do you have any more of those boxes?" Peggy asked. They'd found a box for the quickstone, and she was picking up the switching stone very carefully, making sure her handkerchief was covering all of it.
"Yeah, hang on." He dug through his bag and came up with one more. "We taking this too?"
"It's not particularly dangerous," Peggy replied, dropping the stone gingerly inside. "But it could certainly cause a lot of trouble."
"Definitely," Steve agreed. "How has Saguaro not had trouble with it before?"
"Well, the casing probably helped," Dugan said, picking up the silver framework and dropping it in after the stone.
"And I guess it doesn't do anything if you're the only one touching it," Jim finished.
"Alright, let's pack it up," Steve said. "Jacques, go check the door. I think Saguaro armed it again when he left." He turned to Peggy. "Did Phillips say when he thought Zola's guys might come after this thing?"
"Any day now," Peggy said. "Why?"
"Well, we just wanted the rock, not to hurt anybody. Hydra probably won't be that careful, and especially once they find out it's not here anymore…" He hated for Saguaro and his people to get hurt because of them. Depending who came for the rock, they might just kill everyone if the stone wasn't there.
"Yes, you're right," Peggy agreed. "We could ward the house once we're out."
"Yeah," Steve agreed. He looked over at Bucky. Would warding it be enough? A skilled wizard could break through those eventually, and, if nothing else, Hydra agents were skilled. But they might back off if they knew the stone was gone in the first place. Steve swallowed hard. What he had in mind wasn't…well, it wasn't exactly easing back into messing things up for Hydra. Bucky gave him an encouraging nod.
"Okay, guys, circle up," Steve said. They all came together, looking at him expectantly. "We've got to ward this place, to keep them safe from Hydra once we clear out." They all nodded. That much was fairly obvious. Steve sighed. "Thing is, wards can be broken. These guys didn't do anything to get on Hydra's radar, but if they break in and find out what they want is gone, it could get ugly."
"What are you suggesting?" Gabe wondered.
"I'm thinking we need to make it obvious the stone's gone," Steve said. "So Hydra will know there's no point in even coming in here. If we leave some kind of…signature magic, or a message or something…"
Realization dawned around the circle. "They'll know it's not here because we got it first," Monty surmised.
"Yeah," Steve nodded. "I don't want to make this choice for you guys—calling attention to ourselves like that isn't exactly what I thought we'd be doing our first mission back in."
There was silence for a minute as they all digested that. Gabe smiled. "We've already jumped, Cap. Whether we slow the fall or not, we're gonna hit something eventually. May as well be on our own terms."
"In for a penny, in for a pound," Monty agreed.
"Let's do it," Dugan agreed.
"I've got just the right spell for it too," Jim said.
Jacques agreed enthusiastically, and Peggy very tactfully pretended not to be able to translate the exact words of his agreement.
"Okay," Steve said. "Let's head out."
Bucky came up beside him as they headed for the door. "You did the right thing, Stevie," he said.
Steve knew Bucky had thought so before he pitched it to the others. "Yeah," he sighed. "Feels like I just painted big target on our backs, though."
"You should be used to that by now," Bucky said with a smile. "Running around with a giant patriotic bullseye on your back."
Steve huffed a laugh.
"It really was the right choice," Bucky said again, patting his shoulder encouragingly. "We can handle the fallout."
Steve nodded. It was the right choice—the only choice, really—and they'd all made it. And they were tough. They could handle it.
"I'm proud of you," Peggy said softly while they waited for Dugan to re-lock the door and Jacques to turn all the alarms back on. She twined her fingers into his and gave his hand a quick squeeze. "I know that wasn't easy."
Once Steve had stopped being an idiot and thinking everyone was mad at him, he'd been able to talk to Peggy about what happened and what he was afraid of. She'd understood and hadn't made him feel bad for not knowing what to do and for being afraid. She'd helped him find his feet without pushing him.
"Thanks," he said softly, squeezing her hand in return before letting go. He smiled. "Like they said, we may as well jump back in with both feet, right?"
She smiled. "I don't believe you've ever jumped any other way."
Quietly, they started making their way back downstairs. They had to stop and hide on the second floor again when two doors opened on opposite ends of the hallway. Steve, Gabe and Jacques all dove for the same closet, and Steve ended up jammed behind a hanging line of raincoats while Jacques curled up on the shelf above his head. There was just enough room for Gabe to stand in front of the raincoats, but if anyone opened the door, it would slam him into the wall.
Steve listened carefully, hearing the two walkers meet in the middle of the hallway just outside their closet. A soft, deep voice was met with a quiet, girlish giggle, then they all jumped in alarm as something slammed into the closet door and the unmistakable and surprisingly loud sounds of two people kissing came very clearly through the thin wood.
"Oh, my gosh," Gabe whispered. Jacques snorted softly from somewhere above Steve's head, and Steve studied the frayed hem of one of the raincoats very intently, trying not to listen.
Thankfully, after a few minutes the couple decided to take their meeting somewhere a little more private, and they moved further down the hall. Nobody moved until they heard another door click shut quietly. Gabe opened the door and slipped out, and Jacques slid down from his perch onto Steve's shoulders and then the ground.
"I thought," Dugan said as they regrouped. "That you said we'd have free reign of the place after everyone went to bed." He shot an accusing look at Peggy.
"Well, we would if they'd actually stay in their rooms," she replied.
They'd almost made it out—they were in the kitchen—when they had to hide again from a servant coming down for a late-night snack.
"Seriously, does no one sleep in this house?" Jim complained, unfolding himself from behind a sack of potatoes in the pantry.
They finally made it outside, and while Dugan reset all the locks on the door, the rest of them walked around the outside of the house, setting up every warding spell they could think of. Very carefully, Bucky levitated Jim up onto the roof so he could put a couple of wards up there and whatever that spell was that would tell Hydra the stone was gone.
"We good?" Steve asked when Jim was back on the ground.
"Yep." He dusted off his hands. "Nice job on the wards—they'll definitely have to think twice about going in there, but I don't think they'll have to go that far." He nodded up at the roof. "No question that the rock's not here anymore."
"Great," Steve said. At least Saguaro and his household would be safe now. "We ready to go?"
"Can we get something to eat?" Gabe asked. "I'm hungry."
"It's nearly three in the morning," Monty argued. "Where are you going to get food?"
Peggy hooked a thumb back towards the center of town. "If we head back towards the bars we should be able to find some street vendors selling food."
"Ooh, can we do that, Cap?" Jim asked. "I could so go for some churros right now."
"Oh, and maybe they have some of those kebabs like that Spanish place down by the pier," Bucky added.
"Okay, I wasn't hungry before, but now I am," Steve said. "Just remember, we're still not home yet, so keep an eye out, but, yeah. Let's go get some food."
Meanwhile, in Germany…
Arnim Zola stood very still, hoping that when Schmidt's wrath came, it would not land on him. At the moment, the head of Hydra was standing quietly, his face worryingly free of emotion.
"You're certain?" he said at last.
"Yes, Herr Schmidt," Zola replied. "That the stone is gone, at least. We cannot be one hundred percent certain it was them, but the magic does point that way."
Schmidt was quiet again. "I can't decide whether Rogers and his team are braver or simply more foolish than I thought," he said after a moment. He considered a moment longer. "It seems I will have to continue the lesson I began in the naquadah mine. Go and find Zwart. This can be his chance to prove he was worth keeping alive."
Zola nodded. After the fiasco in Salzburg, Hugo Zwart was in disgrace—had he not invented so many useful spells and potions, Schmidt would have slaughtered him where he stood after managing to capture and then lose Rogers. His intellect was the only thing keeping him alive, and Zola did not envy him his position—if he failed at whatever this scheme of Schmidt's was, even that would not save him from a slow, painful death. "Yes, sir," Zola replied, turning to go.
"And send me the twins as well," Schmidt added. That predatory smile that showed too many teeth was back. "Their particular set of skills will be very useful indeed."
See? A good mission that went well; they had some laughs, they got some churros, and the team is feeling good now. Schmidt's not feeling so great about things, but that can wait until Monday.